Abstract
Nephropsis stewarti Wood-Mason, 1872 is the most common species of the deep-sea clawed lobster genus Nephropsis Wood-Mason, 1872 in the Indo-West Pacific. Morphological comparisons and genetic analyses of extensive material referred to this lobster revealed the presence of three species. The three species differ mainly in body size, development of the intermediate carina on the carapace, position of the lateral pair of rostral teeth, whether the pleonal tergum is granulate, and the spination on the large chelipeds. Nephropsis stewarti is restricted to the western central Indian Ocean, and a neotype is selected to fix its identity. The name Nephropsis grandis Zarenkov, 2006 is revived with neotype selection for the large form found in the West Pacific and northwestern Australia. The smaller form from southern Taiwan and the Philippines is described as Nephropsis pygmaeasp. nov.
Highlights
Among the 16 species in the deep-sea clawed lobster genus Nephropsis Wood-Mason, 1872 (Nephropidae) (Chan 2010, 2019; Chang and Chan 2020), the type species N. stewarti Wood-Mason, 1872 is probably the most well-known in the Indo-West Pacific because of its frequent records showing a wide geographical distribution, large size, and presence at shallower depths compared with other congeners
Slight differences can be observed among the materials of N. stewarti from various localities, and Zarenkov (2006) considered a large specimen from the Arafura Sea, north of Australia, as a different species, described as N. grandis Zarenkov, 2006
Zarenkov’s (2006) specimen is smaller than N. stewarti in many other localities (e.g., Macpherson 1990, 1993; Chan 1997; Zarenkov 2006), and the main diagnostic characteristic of N. grandis is the spination of the large chelipeds, which is missing in the holotype of N. stewarti (Wood-Mason 1873, 1874); Chan (2010, 2019) tentatively treated N. grandis as a junior subjective synonym of N. stewarti
Summary
Among the 16 species in the deep-sea clawed lobster genus Nephropsis Wood-Mason, 1872 (Nephropidae) (Chan 2010, 2019; Chang and Chan 2020), the type species N. stewarti Wood-Mason, 1872 is probably the most well-known in the Indo-West Pacific because of its frequent records showing a wide geographical distribution, large size, and presence at shallower depths compared with other congeners (see for example Miyake 1982; Holthuis 1984, 1991; Baba 1986; Chan and Yu 1988, 1993; Macpherson 1990, 1993; Wadley and Evans 1991; Chan 1997, 1998; Jones and Morgan 2002; Zarenkov 2006; Dineshbabu 2008; Radhakrishnan et al 2019; Chang and Chan 2019). Nephropsis stewarti was originally described from a single female specimen lacking large chelipeds, and collected from Ross Island of the Andaman Islands (Wood-Mason 1873, 1874).
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